As a foodie who knows how to eat, I will never go to a chain restaurant. This is not because there is anything wrong with chain restaurants. On the contrary, chain restaurants are convenient, fast, and affordable, but they always feel like they are missing something. Recently, Ha

As a foodie who knows how to eat, he will never go to chain restaurants.

This is not because there is anything wrong with chain restaurants. On the contrary, chain restaurants are convenient, fast, and affordable, but they always feel like they are missing something.

Recently, Haidilao and Xibei have carried out a wave of "price increase-apology-restoration to original price" operations, which has brought chain catering under the epidemic back to our sight.

△Haidilao apologizes / Weibo

According to a survey launched by China Business News, 31% of consumers said they were “unacceptable” and 39% said they “will not spend” on Haidilao’s price increase.

Many netizens also said that the price increase is one aspect, but the pitifully small quantity is the key point.

But the old artist discovered that no one seems to choose the "not delicious" option in .

It has always been our consensus that "chain restaurants are not delicious". What customers pay for is the service and the brand. They have even become accustomed to it and think there is nothing wrong with it.

However, have we lost any vigilance?

A warning that chain restaurants are encroaching on local taste buds.

China’s eight major cuisines

Chain restaurants can be solved with one formula

Think back, what was the last reason you went to a chain restaurant?

Is it because it has brand endorsement and I believe it is cleaner and hygienic; or because it is a place where internet celebrities check in, so I order a dish and take a photo and send it to my circle of friends; or because I am too lazy to choose and just want to solve the problem of eating quickly...

But for whatever reason, it's definitely not because it tastes good.

If a friend comes to your city, he will never recommend a chain restaurant. Because it is a national chain, it really cannot represent the local flavor.

△A chain restaurant with cuisine in a certain place/Picture Chong

What old artists think is awkward about chain restaurants is:

China has eight major cuisines and countless local cuisines, the soul-stirring Shandong cuisine, the variety of Sichuan cuisine, the richness of Hunan cuisine, The freshness of Cantonese cuisine , the softness and glutinousness of Jiangsu and Zhejiang cuisine, and the tenderness of Jiangnan cuisine have all been nourished by thousands of years of water and soil and historical precipitation...

But chain restaurants use a set of standardized formulas to Dissolved completely.

Under chain restaurants, Sichuan food has become hot pot, Cantonese food has become a tea restaurant, Fujian food can only be avoided as a seafood restaurant , which will only make the stereotype of this place among diners across the country even higher.

△ Only with products can there be cuisine / " flavor world "

The pace of expansion of chain restaurants has completely separated the relationship between customs and food.

How to eliminate a cuisine? Opening a chain of restaurants is enough.

Shandong cuisine originated from the Yellow River. Under the powerful roar of the mother river, hard-core famous dishes such as pot-roasted elbow, nine-turn large intestine, and sweet and sour Yellow River carp were born. It is known as "palace cuisine" and ranks first among the eight major cuisines. , even in Beijing’s famous restaurants in the past, nine out of ten shopkeepers were from Shandong;

But now, although the chain model has made Shandong’s catering output surpass Guangdong for the first time in 2018, becoming a gourmet province, there is only one braised chicken dish left. spread throughout the world.

△The rushing mother river brings sweet and sour Yellow River carp to Shandong people

Sichuan cuisine originated in the basin, which is humid and foggy, and spicy food can only be used to drive away the cold. But spicy is not all Sichuan cuisine. There are 23 kinds of Sichuan cuisine, including salty, sweet, spicy and fresh. Shanghe Gang once served a state banquet with " boiled cabbage " simmered in chicken soup;

But now, our memory of Sichuan cuisine, Besides hot pot, it’s still hot pot.

△Sichuan cuisine "boiled cabbage" was once served at the state banquet

Cantonese cuisine originated from South Vietnam and was the first to trade. In addition to Guangfu, Hakka, Chaoshan and Chaoshan, it also absorbed many Western food styles. However, due to the humid and changeable climate, food is not suitable for preservation. , and developed the characteristics of "freshness", "pursuing the original taste" and "valuing the season";

"When the autumn wind blows, eat cured meats", "When the north wind blows, the cabbage hearts are sweet", "Bamboo shoots are divided into four seasons", and there are "spring bream" for eating fish. "Autumn carp, Xia Sanli" and other sayings, , but now all these are either condensed into teahouses or tea restaurants.

△Cantonese cuisine attaches great importance to seasonal food.

When the food culture accumulated for thousands of years is rigidly stuffed into a set of standardized formulas, it is not difficult to imagine the consequences: food becomes rigid and stereotyped, and the local customs and customs disappear.

In just a few decades, we have almost forgotten even the eight major cuisines (Shandong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, Anhui cuisine , Fujian cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine , Zhejiang cuisine , and Hunan cuisine). They have been replaced by milk tea, Japanese and Korean food, hot pot, buffet and barbecue...

All this is just because of the restaurant chain which claims that breaks regional barriers. What's even sadder about is that we have no idea about it.

△Unknowingly, our local taste buds have been solidified / Tu Chong

In chain stores, everything has a formula to be found:

There is a fixed supply chain for food transportation, from procurement, warehousing, distribution, production, and service , there is a complete set of standardized processes, and the scores are accurate. It's convenient, but the food produced this way is a little less tasteful.

When you walk into a chain restaurant, it is no less than entering a breathtaking assembly line: Everyone lines up, orders, takes out the food, finishes eating, and pays. Everyone is just a member of the assembly line.

pass by in a hurry and eat in a hurry.

In the hustle and bustle of chain restaurants, some people appreciate the service, some appreciate the speed of serving food, and some appreciate the talent show. But the only thing they don't appreciate is the taste itself.

How chain restaurants

dissolve our taste bud memories

The territory of chain restaurants is getting bigger and bigger.

According to the "Catering Industry Blue Book: China Catering Industry Development Report (2019)" and CEIC, China's catering industry revenue reached 4.27 trillion yuan in 2018, second only to the United States, while the chain restaurant market revenue was 833.1 billion yuan, accounting for 19.5% of the total. .

In 2018, the number of fast food stores in the chain restaurant industry reached 17,172,000.

△In 2018, the number of fast food stores in China’s chain restaurant industry reached more than 10 million. According to statistics, more than 95% of enterprises use chain operations to gain economies of scale and brand influence. / CEIC

At this time, was only 33 years away from the opening of the first KFC , and only 30 years away from the opening of the first McDonald's.

The origin of Chinese chain restaurants does come from foreign fast food.

html In the 1980s, with the development of the individual economy, people's "money bags" became increasingly bulging, and the trend of foreign fast food emerged. When the first KFC opened in the Qianmen of Beijing, it was crowded with people, and finally there was no need to "look at the mist through the window screen".

△The grand opening of China’s first KFC. / bilibili

Although this model is more than half a century later than the United States, it has caught up. However, in just a few decades, the price behind the speed of is the taste buds of the Chinese people. The

chain means standardization, scale, and everything can be copied and pasted.

In order to pursue this goal, the time-consuming, complicated and diverse cooking techniques of the past must be abandoned. Therefore, braised sea cucumbers with green onions have become braised chicken, nine-turn large intestine has become pork rib rice, and Sichuan cuisine requires more than 3 hours of roasting beef elbows. It turned into a ready-to-eat spicy hot pot.

In the eyes of chain restaurants, rinsing, stir-frying, and roasting are the fastest ways to eat. At least the stew, braise, steam, simmer, roast, stir-fry, stir-fry, and gratin left over by the ancients can be avoided if possible.

△The Sichuan beef and Buddha roasted elbow that took 3 hours was abandoned by chain restaurants.

What’s even more terrible is that even the taste buds of chain restaurants must be unified across the country, so that can keep up with the pace of national expansion.

looks difficult, right?

"Qingbailei Chao" says:

"People in the north like onions and garlic, people in Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Shu like spicy food, people in Guangdong like light food, and people in Suzhou like sugar. That is to say, in Zhejiang terms, Ningbo Those who like fishy smells are all seafood. Shaoxing Those who like smelly things must wait until they are moldy and fermented before eating them. "

People's taste buds vary from place to place, but chain restaurants do the opposite and treat everything. People's tastes blend together. Since there are trade-offs in local dishes, it is not bad to make compromises and changes in the taste buds of local dishes.

Therefore, Grandma It has a good look, but if this unpopular cuisine wants to go nationwide, it cannot avoid the fate of being transformed into fusion cuisine.

Anyway, if you want to eat authentic food, please go out and turn right.

Moreover, what is even more worrying is that increasingly large chain restaurants are already encroaching on the living space of local market flavor.

Chengdu, Sichuan, known as the "Land of Abundance", is densely populated with 150,000 restaurants. From the moment became famous on the Internet, a large number of chain restaurants began to be born. . Under fierce competition and urban planning, flies The living space of restaurant is being squeezed less and less.

When you ask young people on the street, what is the food in Chengdu? He can talk about a lot: skewers, spicy hot pot, bullfrog griddle, crayfish...

△ Food Paradise, Chengdu. / Tu Chong

As for the delicious dry-fried eel slices, the sweet, sour and slightly spicy Dongpo cuttlefish, and the fresh and sweet steamed river dumplings, who still remembers them?

We do not deny the contribution of chain restaurants in promoting local delicacies, but taste buds have indeed been stereotyped and restricted as a result.

Foodie Shi Guanghua once commented on this phenomenon: "The taste buds of Sichuan people have now been injured and degraded. The result is that the more we eat, the spicier we eat."

Chinese taste buds

are always hidden in the market

To know a city, It often starts with the taste buds.

Behind the taste buds are local customs and human sentiments. However, the disappearance of taste buds in the city has even blurred our understanding of the city.

Chain restaurants occupy taste buds, which is inseparable from the city's development speed and the age structure of the population.

Internet celebrity store can always easily settle in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

According to the 2017 "Global Shopping Center Development Report", Shenzhen's shopping malls under construction ranked first in the world with a total area of ​​4.58 million square meters. Under the shopping malls, there are countless "spring breeze blows again" "Internet celebrity store.

△Shenzhen Yifangcheng / Tu Chong

In 2018, Shenzhen and Shanghai are competing for the status of the "Internet celebrity output place".

This is not surprising, Shenzhen is known as "young". The average age of the permanent population is only 32.5 years old, and the proportion of young people has reached 62.9%, ahead of the other three places.

△Proportion of young people in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen / Dataway

Most young people work hard in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In the land occupied by young people, traditional cuisine and craftsmanship seem a bit out of date.

In addition, with the development of urban planning and sanitation reforms, roadside stalls, late-night snack stalls, and snack bars in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou have been hidden deeper and deeper, and there are fewer and fewer. Shenzhen is even the soil where it was born. Not very common.

△The smell of fireworks (human smell) in big cities is getting less and less / Tu Chong

Local flavor has to settle for the next best thing and find a living space in more remote places.

, Shunde, Guangdong, it is said that "there is no chain restaurant because chain restaurants cannot survive here."

People in Shunde attach great importance to the freshness of ingredients. They still retain the living habit of "eating from the mountains and eating from the sea." However, the ingredients that are processed by the central kitchens of chain restaurants and then shipped across the country have lost the "freshness" of the ingredients. , no more soul.

The first episode of the documentary " Taste of Shunde " tells the story of the traditional dragon boat rice of the locals in Shunde, Guangdong.

During the Dragon Boat Festival, dozens of dragon boats sailed out from various villages. A few shirtless men and peasant women with rolled-up sleeves were preparing dragon boat meals for more than 2,000 people in the village by the river. html On the 6th, everyone was seated, and there was a lot of people and everyone was eating. Customs and customs.

Here, we are always foodies, not diners.

However, we should think more about whether should reserve a corner in urban development for the taste buds in memory while chain restaurants are developing.

This is not a contradiction. City and food should complement each other.

Hong Kong has been impacted by Western food culture for more than a hundred years, but it still maintains a strong local flavor. No matter how many chain restaurants are opened in shopping malls, the mainstream food is still the street food stalls, restaurants and old ice houses hidden by the busy traffic and neon lights.

They are trying to balance the relationship between urban development and street stalls.

In 2009, Hong Kong announced the "Dai Pai Dong Conservation Plan" to relax the application conditions for a Dai Pai Dong license. In 2012, a new mobile vendor license was issued to prevent the disappearance of street shops.

As long as fish eggs, cart noodles and pineapple oil are still around, Hong Kong’s grassroots culture will have a place.

"Snack Paradise" Taiwan , there are a total of 6.307 million stalls (data in August 2018).

Taiwan’s night markets are particularly famous. People are used to grabbing hand cakes, octopus balls, frog milk, etc. on their way home after get off work.

Taiwan has very high requirements for applying for a hawker license, but supports at least 1 million people. More and more college graduates have taken street vendors as a career in recent years, with the proportion increasing from 7.2% in 2008 to 11.6% in 2013.

Moreover, they will conduct an investigation on mobile vendors that have no fixed business location, such as night market vendors, street salty chicken carts, arcade stalls, food trucks, etc. every 5 years to ensure road occupation and hygiene. And other issues.

There are nearly 300,000 restaurants in Tokyo , but under the integration of all countries, they have retained their independence well. They advocate the "craftsman spirit", and currently there are about 10,000 professional craftsmen living there.

No matter how fast the pace of the city is, delicious food can always slow them down. A simple grilled eel can be passed down to 12 generations of craftsmen . The iron stick is held like an acupuncturist moving a needle, following the lines of the eel meat, and removing the eel. Deliciousness leads to new realms.

Their pursuit of perfection has enriched and brought life to the city of Tokyo.

△World Food Paradise, Tokyo

When a city loses its taste buds, it loses more than just taste.

Behind the combination of region and food, there are too many customs, water and soil, culture and human relations that we cannot see with the naked eye. These are the core of the city that we should cherish.

Even if the development of chain restaurants is unstoppable, we cannot just watch these things disappear along with the urban taste buds.

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[Today’s Author]

Huang Jiabao

Editor | Ershu Gong

Typesetting | Gloria

The original text was first published on the public account "Nine Lines"